scholarly journals Evaluation of Energy Performance and Comfort: Case-Study of University Buildings with Design Adapted to Local Climate

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7155
Author(s):  
Antonio Galiano-Garrigós ◽  
María Domenech-Mataix ◽  
Ángel Benigno González-Avilés ◽  
Carlos Rizo-Maestre
Keyword(s):  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Simulation Tool ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Local Climate ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Performance Point ◽  
Design Solutions ◽  
Real Building

One of the main strategies to reduce countries’ energy bills is to invest in efficient buildings. To achieve this objective, the European Union Member States have developed different methodologies to evaluate building energy performance, which are often supported by simulation tools. These tools are based on calculation engines that use databases and simplifications to attempt to bring their results close to real building performance and are mostly designed to be used at the end of the process, neglecting their role in project decision-making processes. To compensate for this situation and to obtain the most accurate results, the methodologies recommend previous work during the building design phase to adopt passive design solutions that learn from experience and aim to adapt the building design to the local climate. However, these design solutions are difficult to adopt while working with medium to large public buildings and are often not properly understood by the simulation tools. In addition, new BIM methodologies are being implemented, starting to enable proper interaction between the designer and the results, and opening up the option of introducing other types of calculations, such as building comfort, in the calculation process. Among the group of countries with limited simulation tools that are starting to be substituted is Spain, which recently launched its first BIM-based energy simulation tool. This tool aims to compensate for the limitations of the former simulation tools and opens up the option of performing comfort calculations by sharing information with other programs. The objective of this research is to evaluate, from different perspectives, the performance of this new simulation tool on three buildings at the University of Alicante. These were chosen as university campuses are responsible for large groups of buildings and belong to the group of stakeholders interested in obtaining efficient and comfortable buildings. These case studies are defined by their extreme adaptation to design recommendations for mild-warm weather. At the end of the process, the difference is measured between simulation and real building performance. The results obtained show that simulation still differs greatly from real building performance from the energy performance point of view, while the comfort evaluation shows results that are closer to the reality of the buildings.

scholarly journals Decision-Making Processes in Controlling Exposure to Sunlight Supported by Simulation Tools: A Case Study in Warm Weather

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4100
Author(s):  
Mariana Huskinson ◽  
Antonio Galiano-Garrigós ◽  
Ángel Benigno González-Avilés ◽  
M. Isabel Pérez-Millán
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Information Modeling ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Evaluation Tool ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Building Information ◽  
The Impact

Improving the energy performance of existing buildings is one of the main strategies defined by the European Union to reduce global energy costs. Amongst the actions to be carried out in buildings to achieve this objective is working with passive measures adapted to each type of climate. To assist designers in the process of finding appropriate solutions for each building and location, different tools have been developed and since the implementation of building information modeling (BIM), it has been possible to perform an analysis of a building’s life cycle from an energy perspective and other types of analysis such as a comfort analysis. In the case of Spain, the first BIM environment tool has been implemented that deals with the global analysis of a building’s behavior and serves as an alternative to previous methods characterized by their lack of both flexibility and information offered to designers. This paper evaluates and compares the official Spanish energy performance evaluation tool (Cypetherm) released in 2018 using a case study involving the installation of sunlight control devices as part of a building refurbishment. It is intended to determine how databases and simplifications affect the designer’s decision-making. Additionally, the yielded energy results are complemented by a comfort analysis to explore the impact of these improvements from a users’ wellbeing viewpoint. At the end of the process the yielded results still confirm that the simulation remains far from reality and that simulation tools can indeed influence the decision-making process.

scholarly journals Analysis of basic building performance data for identification of performance issues

Facilities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (13/14) ◽  
pp. 801-817 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristan Gerrish ◽  
Kirti Ruikar ◽  
Malcolm Cook ◽  
Mark Johnson ◽  
Mark Phillip
Keyword(s):  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Thermal Response ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Performance Data ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Historical Building ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Performance Issues ◽  
Under Performing

Purpose The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the use of historical building performance data to identify potential issues with the build quality and operation of a building, as a means of narrowing the scope of in-depth further review. Design/methodology/approach The response of a room to the difference between internal and external temperatures is used to demonstrate patterns in thermal response across monitored rooms in a single building, to clearly show where rooms are under-performing in terms of their ability to retain heat during unconditioned hours. This procedure is applied to three buildings of different types, identifying the scope and limitation of this method and indicating areas of building performance deficiency. Findings The response of a single space to changing internal and external temperatures can be used to determine whether it responds differently to other monitored buildings. Spaces where thermal bridging and changes in use from design were encountered exhibit noticeably different responses. Research limitations/implications Application of this methodology is limited to buildings where temperature monitoring is undertaken both internally for a variety of spaces, and externally, and where knowledge of the uses of monitored spaces is available. Naturally ventilated buildings would be more suitable for analysis using this method. Originality/value This paper contributes to the understanding of building energy performance from a data-driven perspective, to the knowledge on the disparity between building design intent and reality, and to the use of basic commonly recorded performance metrics for analysis of potentially detrimental building performance issues.

scholarly journals Building Energy and Cost Performance: An Analysis of Thirty Melbourne Case Studies

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Lay Langston ◽  
Craig Langston
Keyword(s):  
Operating Cost ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Doctoral Study ◽  
Cost Performance ◽  
Full Life Cycle ◽  
Coefficients Of Variation ◽  
Building Design Decisions

This study investigates the energy and cost performance of thirty recent buildings in Melbourne, Australia. Commonly, building design decisions are based on issues pertaining to construction cost, and consideration of energy performance is made only within the context of the initial project budget. Even where energy is elevated to more importance, operating energy is seen as the focus and embodied energy is nearly always ignored. For the first time, a large sample of buildings has been assembled and analyzed to improve the understanding of both energy and cost performance over their full life cycle, which formed the basis of a wider doctoral study into the inherent relationship between energy and cost. The aim of this paper is to report on typical values for embodied energy, operating energy, capital cost and operating cost per square metre for a range of building functional types investigated in this research. The conclusion is that energy and cost have quite different profiles across projects, and yet the mean GJ/m2 or cost/m2 have relatively low coefficients of variation and therefore may be useful as benchmarks of typical building performance.  

scholarly journals Building Retrofit to Improve Energy Performance from Office to Accommodation. Case study: Tower Building, Nottingham, UK

2018 ◽  
Vol 206 ◽  
pp. 02010
Author(s):  
Nissa Aulia Ardiani ◽  
Suhendri ◽  
Mochamad Donny Koerniawan ◽  
Rachmawan Budiarto
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Natural Ventilation ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Sustainable Building ◽  
Current Function ◽  
Building Performance Simulation ◽  
Building Retrofit ◽  
Double Skin

Designed in Brutalism style by architect Andrew Renton, Tower Building has 17 floors for academic and lecturers’ office function. As the highest point in University of Nottingham, this tower has been built for almost five decades. The aim of this project is to propose the tower retrofit from current function to accommodation purpose. Improvement in terms of function and building energy performance by applying sustainable building technologies are the objectives of the retrofit. The advanced plan of building retrofit was proposed after assessing the current building performance and determined the problems. The proposed building design was based on building performance simulation result, literature, and precedent studies. Thereafter, several technologies and design ideas were applied for further investigation, to examine how is the strategies works in the building retrofit. Integrated double skin façade with BIPV, bio composite material for internal wall, double low-e glass for external wall, as well as green lung to improve natural ventilation and create public space were proposed for the building.

scholarly journals When Performance Informs Design

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Stannard ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Occupant Comfort ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Code Compliance

It is clear that building energy performance plays an essential role in architecture and in architectural practice, not only for reasons of occupant comfort and energy efficiency but also for minimal code compliance. While achieving energy compliance is essential and even laudable, our current definition of “building performance” is somewhat limited. Energy performance analyses are often performed solely for code compliance with a minimal feedback loop during the design process. In the instances when analyses are completed as part of design, a growing array of simulation tools allow designers to make more informed decisions during the design process. There is tremendous potential in this trajectory.

scholarly journals Method for Scalable and Automatised Thermal Building Performance Documentation and Screening

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 3866 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoffer Rasmussen ◽  
Peder Bacher ◽  
Davide Calì ◽  
Henrik Aalborg Nielsen ◽  
Henrik Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Solar Irradiation ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Performance Parameters ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Outdoor Temperature ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Energy Signature

In Europe, more and more data on building energy use will be collected in the future as a result of the energy performance of buildings directive (EPBD), issued by the European Union. Moreover, both at European level and globally it became evident that the real energy performance of new buildings and the existing building stock needs to be documented better. Such documentation can, for example, be done with data-driven methods based on mathematical and statistical approaches. Even though the methods to extract energy performance characteristics of buildings are numerous, they are of varying reliability and often associated with a significant amount of human labour, making them hard to apply on a large scale. A classical approach to identify certain thermal performance parameters is the energy signature method. In this study, an automatised, nonlinear and smooth approach to the well-known energy signature is proposed, to quantify key thermal building performance parameters. The research specifically aims at describing the linear and nonlinear heat usage dependency on outdoor temperature, wind and solar irradiation. To make the model scalable, we realised it so that it only needs the daily average heat use of buildings, the outdoor temperature, the wind speed and the global solar irradiation. The results of applying the proposed method on heat consumption data from 16 different and randomly selected Danish occupied houses are analysed.

scholarly journals An Overview of Climate Change and Building Energy: Performance, Responses and Uncertainties

Buildings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yassaghi ◽  
Hoque
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Building Energy Performance ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Emissions Scenarios ◽  
Resilient Design

It is becoming increasingly crucial to develop methods and strategies to assess building performance under the changing climate and to yield a more sustainable and resilient design. However, the outputs of climate models have a coarse spatial and temporal resolution and cannot be used directly in building energy simulation tools. This paper reviews methods to develop fine spatial and temporal weather files that incorporate climate emissions scenarios by means of downscaling. An overview of the climate change impact on building energy performance is given, and potential adaptation and mitigation factors in response to the changing climate in the building sector are presented. Also, methods to reflect, propagate, and partition main sources of uncertainties in both weather files and buildings are summarized, and a sample approach to propagate the uncertainties is demonstrated.

scholarly journals Proposed method for probabilistic risk analysis using building performance simulations and stochastic parameters

2020 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 25005
Author(s):  
Tomas Ekström ◽  
Stephen Burke ◽  
Lars-Erik Harderup ◽  
Jesper Arfvidsson
Keyword(s):  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Probabilistic Methods ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Stochastic Parameters ◽  
The Impact

As parts of the world continue the work of mitigating the impact of climate change, many countries strive for continued reductions in energy demand from buildings by implementing more stringent building regulations. Consequently, the importance of accurate and efficient building performance simulations to predict the energy use of a building design increases. As observed in earlier studies, there are performance gaps between the predicted annual energy demand from building energy performance simulations based on deterministic methods compared to the monitored annual energy use of a building. This paper presents a preliminary method developed using probabilistic methods for risk analysis and building performance simulations to predict the energy performance of buildings using stochastic parameters. The method is used to calculate the probability for the energy performance of a building design to fulfil the energy requirements. The consequences are quantified using an example of energy performance contracting to evaluate the inherent risk of a building’s design. The method was demonstrated in a case study and validated by comparing the results in energy performance and probability of failure against measured data from 26 single-family houses.

scholarly journals Building Performance Evaluation of a New Hospital Building in the UK: Balancing Indoor Environmental Quality and Energy Performance

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 115
Author(s):  
Nishesh Jain ◽  
Esfand Burman ◽  
Samuel Stamp ◽  
Clive Shrubsole ◽  
Roderic Bunn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluation ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Indoor Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Quality ◽  
Indoor Air ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Indoor Environmental Quality

Hospitals are controlled yet complex ecosystems which provide a therapeutic environment that promotes healing, wellbeing and work efficiency for patients and staff. As these buildings accommodate the sick and vulnerable, occupant wellbeing and good indoor environmental quality (IEQ) that deals with indoor air quality (IAQ), thermal comfort, lighting and acoustics are important objectives. As the specialist nature of hospital function demands highly controlled indoor environments, this makes them energy intensive buildings due to the complex and varying specifications for their functions and operations. This paper reports on a holistic building performance evaluation covering aspects of indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting, acoustics, and energy use. It assesses the performance issues and inter-relationships between IEQ and energy in a new building on a hospital campus in the city of Bristol, United Kingdom. The empirical evidence collated from this case study and the feedback received from the hospital staff help identify the endemic issues and constraints related to hospital buildings, such as the need for robust ventilation strategies in hospitals in urban areas that mitigate the effect of indoor and outdoor air pollution and ensuring the use of planned new low-carbon technologies. Whilst the existing guidelines for building design provide useful instructions for the protection of hospital buildings against ingress of particulate matter from outdoors, more advanced filtration strategies may be required to enact chemical reactions required to control the concentration levels of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and benzene. Further lessons for improved performance in operation and maintenance of hospitals are highlighted. These include ensuring that the increasingly available metering and monitoring data in new buildings, through building management systems, is used for efficient and optimal building operations for better IEQ and energy management. Overall, the study highlights the need for an integrated and holistic approach to building performance to ensure that healthy environments are provided while energy efficiency targets are met.

scholarly journals Energy Performance Assessment of Innovative Building Solutions Coming from Construction and Demolition Waste Materials

Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1226
Author(s):  
Beatriz Fraga-De Cal ◽  
Antonio Garrido-Marijuan ◽  
Olaia Eguiarte ◽  
Beñat Arregi ◽  
Ander Romero-Amorrortu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Insulation ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Flow Analysis ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Construction And Demolition Waste ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Demolition Waste ◽  
The Impact

Prefabricated solutions incorporating thermal insulation are increasingly adopted as an energy conservation measure for building renovation. The InnoWEE European project developed three technologies from Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) materials through a manufacturing process that supports the circular economy strategy of the European Union. Two of them consisted of geopolymer panels incorporated into an External Thermal Insulation Composite System (ETICS) and a ventilated façade. This study evaluates their thermal performance by means of monitoring data from three pilot case studies in Greece, Italy, and Romania, and calibrated building simulation models enabling the reliable prediction of energy savings in different climates and use scenarios. Results showed a reduction in energy demand for all demo buildings, with annual energy savings up to 25% after placing the novel insulation solutions. However, savings are highly dependent on weather conditions since the panels affect cooling and heating loads differently. Finally, a parametric assessment is performed to assess the impact of insulation thickness through an energy performance prediction and a cash flow analysis.

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